Brainstorm rules

0. General rules

0.1. The general rules are established for all domains in all cities in all countries in which the game Brainstorm is held. The present rules are the uniform statutory act. All other conditions, recommendations, rules made by domain owner or authors of the game itself should not contradict these rules

1. Participation requirements

1.1. When a team applies to participate, they automatically agree with the existing rules of the Brainstorm game and promises to follow them strictly

1.2. Every person that participates in the game, automatically agrees with the existing rules of the Brainstorm game when they confirm participation on the web site

1.3. The organisation of Brainstorm games must follow these principles:

1.3.1. The principle of ‘fair-play’, meaning they must not deliberately agitate other players and must not prevent other players from correctly observing the rules

1.3.2. The ‘independent-accomplishment’ principle, meaning organisers and players must not help any of the teams to accomplish any of the missions

1.3.3. The ‘equal conditions’ principle, meaning the missions must not give any team an unfair advantage over another team

1.3.4. The principle of ‘independence of domain owner’, meaning the owner of the domain must be completely independent from all other participants and is responsible for all decisions made in the domain

2. The game

2.1. The object of the game is to solve the puzzles, riddles, anagrams, problems, etc. the game is held over the Internet and it does not require any missions be solved in the real world

2.2. The successful completion of each mission is indicated by finding the correct word, answer or code for the given task

2.3. The game always progresses linearly; all teams (players) solve the missions in the order given on the web site. That is, the teams (players) start with mission 1, followed by mission 2, etc.

3. Restrictions and interdictions in the game

3.1. The only way to pass any mission is to solve each one yourself (there must be members of the present on the location of a code/agent)

3.2. It is forbidden to receive a code by:

3.2.1. Being given the code by another team

3.2.2. Bribing, tempting, beating up participants taking part in the organisation of the game with the purpose of receiving a code or any information about the game’s script

3.2.3. Creating a script or program in order to gain access to any part of the script, such as by hacking the server

3.2.4. Trying to use a brute-force attack on passwords in order to log in as an author of the game or the domain-owner so that they have unauthorised access to the script of the game

3.2.5. To move, destroy, spoil, hide, take-away, etc. the codes created by organisers of the game

3.3. If a team or member breaks any of the rules above, they will receive a time penalty (Added to the total time taken to complete the game) or being disqualified from the current game, or the team/member being blacklisted (in this case they will not be able to get authorisation on the domain) for a set time or for life, or sending a team member to Siberia (http://siberia.en.cx) – for life

4. Completing the game

4.1. The opportunity to take part in the game ends at a specified time, which is stated in the game description.

4.2. Before this time, teams that accomplish the game and get into the top-10 leaderboard have the opportunity to rank the game on the scale of 1-10.

4.3. After this, the organisers summarise how the game went. If the game is announced to have been successful, the members of the team receive points and the winner gets the cash prize set at the beginning of the game. If the game is announced to have been unsuccessful, the teams/team members will be refunded (if fees had been accepted via EN-Money, otherwise refund conditions are set by organisers) and teams/team members will get no points

4.4. By default, the winning team is the team that completes all the tasks in the shortest time and does not break any game-rules

4.5. The game summarisation that took place may be corrected by the game’s authors; teams may receive time-bonuses (deductions from total time taken to accomplish all missions) or time penalties (additions to total time taken to accomplish all missions) for breaking any game-rules

4.6. Bonuses or penalties that are given, should be commented by the authors of the game. Teams/team members have the right to see these comments in the summarisation-tables (all information about the games that have been held are stored here)

4.7. In the case of having a claim of unfairness (with proof), the team/team members can report it to the game authors before the end-time of the game

4.8. If any claim cannot be resolved independently by the teams, all of the team leaders (or team representatives) will be called together in a meeting, with the purpose of reaching a verdict for the case by hearing the arguments of each side and voting on who they believe to be right/wrong as well as how the situation could be resolved. The decision about a questionable case is made by the authors of the game, taking into account the verdict from the team-leader meeting. The decision of the game authors should follow common sense and logic, should be impartial and should not contradict with any existing rules

4.9. Teams and team members that disagree with the decision made by the authors of the game, have the opportunity to make an appeal to the owner of the domain. The decision made by the owner of the domain is final. In making this decision, the owner of the domain must refer to the agreement of the owners of Encounter.

4.10. If the decision of the owner of the domain contradicts the agreement of the owners of Encounter, the decision made by the owner of the domain can be overruled by the owner of Encounter

5. Force-majeure

5.1. All force-majeure situations that infringe-upon the principle; “equal opportunities for accomplishment of the mission for all teams.”

5.2. Situations which are considered to be force-majeure:

5.2.1. Mistakes in the game’s script, made by the authors, make it impossible to find the correct answer in the given time, such as when the text of the mission or clues has mistakes and typing errors, bad planning causing items to be too difficult to find, etc.

5.2.2. Links given in the given tasks or clues lead to pages that have stopped working

5.3. If force-majeure occurs after the successful-completion of the mission by the majority of the teams (more than or equal to 50%), the decision is made to award the teams who were unable to accomplish the mission with an average time for its completion (based on the information known about the time taken for the other teams to complete the mission)

5.4. If force-majeure occurs after the successful completion of the mission by the minority of the teams (less than 50%), the decision if made to cancel the mission. In this case all teams who spent time on this mission, will gain a time-bonus equal to the time spent

6. The Prize

6.1. The prize for winning the game is awarded to the winning team (or participant in a single-player game)

6.2. The prize may be transferred into the internal W-account of the winner (team-leader) if payment is accepted via EN-money

6.3. The prize consists of the standard monetary prize as well as any other prizes that may have been agreed by the game organisers before-hand

6.4. The standard prize consists of a percentage of the total money paid-in by all participating players

6.5. The prize may vary from game-to-game and is set by the game authors with co-operation of the domain owner. The team who came last may receive a booby-prize

6.6. In some occasions, it may be possible to have additional prizes provided by sponsors

6.7. In some occasions, there is the possibility of awarding a transparent prize, which may take the form of a trophy that stays with the winning team until they are beaten

7. Local rules for Brainstorm

7.1. The domain-owner has the right to set additional rules, restrictions and interdictions in only their domain, which should not contradict the existing core rules